This is naive. Apple US sells Apple Ireland a macbook pro for 1000$. 1000$ is what it costs Apple US to get it from China, so no taxes as there is no profit.

This is naive. Apple US sells Apple Ireland a macbook pro for 1000$. 1000$ is what it costs Apple US to get it from China, so no taxes as there is no profit. Apple Ireland sells that same macbook to Apple UK for 2000$. Apple Ireland realizes 1000$ in profit, and pays the Irish rate on that profit. Apple UK pays no tax, because they bought the machine for 2k and sold it to consumers for 2k, giving them 0 profit on the sale of a new macbook. Using this shell game i can realize 100% of my profits in any particular tax jurisdiction that I want; regardless of where sales are actually made. I now pay 0 taxes in the UK regardless of whether I sell 1 unit or 1 billion units in the UK. Do you think this is above board? Do you believe that the company selling 1 billion units and paying 0 taxes represents an equivalent burden on society to the company selling 1 unit and paying 0 tax? Does this company not use the publicly maintained roads? Airports? Are its UK workers not kept healthy by the publicly available health services? Sure apple paid all of its legal obligations on its 0$ of profit in the UK - how they ended up with a reported 0$ profit in the UK is something worth having a conversation about.